Payment for mobile phone services, and in particular for services requiring “airtime credit”, such as text messaging and voice calls, can be generally divided into two main categories: (a) payment on a subscription basis in which the user pays a certain amount (typically on a monthly basis) and receives a set amount of airtime credit in their airtime account in return; and (b) payment on an on-demand “pay-as-you-go” basis, where the user can pay to lop-up′ or ‘recharge’ the airtime credit in their account as and when necessary.
Mobile phones are becoming increasingly common across the world, and the on-demand option is especially prevalent in rural communities. However, airtime distribution channels are not necessarily available all of the time, particularly in rural areas. In addition, sometimes customers may need to urgently make use of airtime services but (for one reason or another) have insufficient airtime credit in their account to do so. In such cases, an “airtime-on-credit” service can be offered to customers. This service involves provision of an airtime loan to the customer, where airtime credit is placed in the customer's account for subsequent use as usual. When the customer purchases a top-up/recharge amount at a later time, some or all of this amount can then be used for loan settlement and is allocated to recovery of the loan amount.
The process of obtaining (and using) the loaned airtime credit, as well as the subsequent loan recovery process have certain considerations and challenges associated with them, in order to provide optimal accessibility for customers to the desired airtime services, as well as for efficient recovery of the loaned credit.
It is desired to improve the above-described processing relating to provision of “airtime-on-credit” services.